Yet the workday has its fair share of hurdles that slow us down and hold us back. Salary.com reported in its last “Wasting Time at Work” Survey that 89% of respondents admitted they wasted time at work each day, with more than half confessing to squandering up to an hour a day on meaningless pursuits.

The distracting culprits? No big surprise:

Internet surfing

Mobile applications and notification

Interruptions

Repetitive meetings

Endless emails strings

But turning off those the temptations is not always the answer.

Yes, bosses can encourage fewer and more productive meetings. Emails can be limited to two communications only before a real conversation is required. But stringently policing app notifications and non-work related internet access could have adverse effects.

Nearly 10% in that survey would leave their job if strict online policies were put in place and a significant portion said it could cause them to reject a job offer. Plus, there is validity in people needing to take mental breaks from time to time.

Make sure the time spent actually working is much more productive.

Coffee runs. Social media. Checking the news. Chatting at work. Online shopping. Those interruptions are not going away, especially with the prevalence of mobile apps. To counter, many productivity gurus recommend make sure that when work IS being done, it is being done in the very best ways possible.

Most have embraced automated solutions such as CRM (75%+ of companies have implemented), HRMS & HRIS (50%+ adoption), ERPs (now a $10B market), and the like. With these on-prem and cloud-based powerhouses, processes flow nicely through the system…until the document gets to the approval and signature stage. Then suddenly everything becomes “old school” with printers, scanners, faxes, pens, and even typewriters. Looking back further, horseback and Morse code were replaced with more efficient methods — printers, scanners, fax machines and more are in the process of being replaced by digital processes.

Yet for those who still use paper, the hours, days, and weeks it takes for documents to be sent, signed, and mailed back slow down the pace of any office, and in turn, offer plenty of opportunities for employees to online shop, update their profiles, and follow their home team at their desk. Paper documents are also a time drain in and of themselves: 9 million hours are spent looking for lost or misfiled documents every day for US companies alone.

It’s time to consider some time-saving tech.

Simply adding automation into your paperwork approval and signing processes can yield amazing results. And since eSignature and Digital Signature tools are integrated into most business must-haves such as Salesforce, Office 365, Google Docs, Intuit, and the like, it’s not a forklift implementation.

Be Boundless: Drive Global Business with eSignatures

The eIDAS regulation, effective 1st July 2016, opens the door for businesses operating in continental Europe to realise the speed, transparency, security and financial benefit of digital services with a simplified and standardised approach to electronic signature. Join Richard Oliphant, DocuSign General Counsel EMEA, as he explains how you can best capitalise on this new opportunity and what the new regulation means for your business, whether in the UK, or the EU.